The Secret Points Shopping Portal With More Stores Than the Ultimate Rewards Portal!

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One of the best ways to get miles and points on your regular spending is to use online shopping portals.

I’ve written about using Evreward to find the best shopping portal deals.  But did you know Barclaycard has a shopping portal too, and it’s NOT listed on Evreward?

Barclays Rewards Boost
Barclaycard RewardsBoost Portal: Another Way to Earn Extra Miles and Points on Your Online Shopping!

How Does It Work?

Link:   Barclaycard RewardsBoost Portal

To earn extra miles and points by shopping through the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal, you must be a Barclaycard cardholder.  But not all Barclaycard cards qualify.

For example, if you have the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard or Barclaycard US Airways cards, you can access the shopping portal.

But cards like the Barclaycard Choice Privileges or Barclaycard Hawaiian Airlines don’t allow cardholders access.

Note:   If you have only the Barclaycard US Airways card, you’ll be sent to the Dividend Miles Shopping Portal, which has different payouts than the standard Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal.

How to Earn Extra Miles and Points

Step 1:   Does Your Barclaycard Qualify?

If your card qualifies, you’ll see the “Earn More Miles With RewardsBoost” icon when you log into your Barclaycard account.

Click the “Earn More Miles With RewardsBoost” Icon to Shop Through the Portal
Click the “Earn More Miles With RewardsBoost” Icon to Shop Through the Portal

Click the “Shop Now” button to be taken to the portal.

Step 2:  Search for Categories, Merchants, or Products

Once you’ve logged into the RewardsBoost portal, you’ll be able to choose from hundreds of online stores, airlines, hotels, and car rental companies.

You’ll earn extra points or miles per $1 you spend, depending on the merchant.  Or occasionally, they’ll offer a lump sum of miles and points for a purchase, or another bonus like free shipping.

You can also search by product, and it will list the merchants that carry it, along with payouts.  Click “Shop Now” to start shopping at the merchant’s website.

Barclays Rewards Boost
If You Search by Product, You Can See Which Merchants Carry It and How Many Bonus Points You’d Get

Step 3:  Go Shopping!

Once you click through to a merchant, it won’t look much different from the store’s regular website.  Add items to your cart or make reservations as you normally would.

Barclays Rewards Boost
I Clicked Through to Best Buy and Shopped as I Normally Would

Once you’ve paid for your purchase, the regular points should show up on your Barclaycard statement immediately.

The bonus points from shopping through the mall may take some time (up to 8 weeks but hopefully less!) to post to your account.

Is It Worth It?

The look and feel of the site is similar to that of the Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portal.  I did some comparisons to see which portal had better deals.

One of the 1st things I noticed about the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal is that there seem to be many more merchants listed, compared to other sites like Chase Ultimate Rewards.

For example, in the category “Apparel – Women“, I counted ~65 merchants on the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal.  Barclaycard RewardsBoost had more than double that!

And the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal has many more merchants listed for travel than the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal.  For example, when you search for “Travel – Hotels and Accomodations” on the Chase portal, you get 4 options:  Hotels.com, Expedia, Hotwire, and Gilt City.

Barclays Rewards Boost
The Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal Lists 4 Options for Hotels and Accommodations

But the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal lists 38 merchants in the same category, including Marriott, IHG, Choice Hotels, and Westin.  Plus, Orbitz, Travelocity, and Priceline are also included.

Barclays Rewards Boost
Just Part of the List of Hotels & Accomodations on the Barclaycard Portal

I found similar results when I searched for flights and car rentals.  The Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal has many more choices!

Where Will You Earn More Miles and Points?

Because the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal does NOT appear on Evreward, you’ll have to log-in to search for a specific merchant and see if the bonus points are better or worse than other shopping portals.

I looked at some of the featured merchants on both the Barclaycard and Chase portals to see which paid out more bonus points.

Barclaycard RewardsBoost PortalChase Ultimate Rewards Shopping Portal
Walmart2 miles per $11 point per $1
Staples2 miles per $14 points per $1
Home Depot2 miles per $13 points per $1
Best Buy 2 miles per $11 point per $1
Sephora5 miles per $15 points per $1
Macy's3 miles per $15 points per $1
iTunes4 miles per $13 points per $1
FTD10 miles per $110 points per $1
Hotwire1 mile per $11 point per $1
Groupon4 miles per $13 points per $1

Sometimes the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal paid more than the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, and sometimes the opposite was true.

So you have to compare!  But I think it’s worth it, because the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal has many more merchants (travel, especially).

Note:  Barclaycard Arrival miles and Chase Ultimate Rewards points are NOT created equal!

If the payouts for a merchant are similar between the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal and the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, you’ll have a decision to make.  That’s assuming you have credit cards that qualify for both shopping portals.

The Barclaycard Arrival Plus card earns miles which can be redeemed for 2.2% cash back now 2.1% back for travel.  So for example, a $1,000 flight on Expedia booked through the RewardsBoost portal earns you an extra 1 point per $1 you spend, or $11 (once you take into account the 10% bonus now 5% bonus for travel redemptions).

However, if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Freedom, or Chase Ink card, you can shop through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal.  You’d earn the same extra 1 point per $1, or 1,000 points.

And those 1,000 points could be transferred to travel partners like United Airlines, Southwest, or Hyatt, and be worth considerably more than the $11 cash back you’d get from Barclaycard.

Remember, to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to partner airlines and hotels, you must have the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Ink Plus, or Chase Ink Bold card.

Barclays Rewards Boost
Transferring Chase Points to Travel Partners Is Often a Better Deal Than Cash Back

But given there are many merchants and travel companies on the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal that aren’t on other portals at all, many times you shouldn’t even have to make a decision!

Are There Drawbacks?

The FAQ for the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal says it can take up to 8 weeks for bonus miles to post to your account.  And folks on FlyerTalk have complained that sometimes miles go missing or take months to post.

Barclaycard also makes it clear that you can only use coupon or promotion codes found on the Barclaycard RewardsBoost mall.  I don’t have personal experience with trying coupon codes from elsewhere, but if you’ve done it and the miles have posted, please let me know in the comments!

Bottom Line

Log into your Barclaycard account to see if your Barclaycard credit card qualifies you for bonus miles through their Barclaycard RewardsBoost shopping portal.  It’s not listed on Evreward so you’ll have to compare payouts manually.

The Barclaycard RewardsBoost shopping portal has a wide selection of merchants and travel sites.  But it doesn’t always pay out the most points!

When payouts are competitive, decide whether you prefer Barclaycard points or another currency such as Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

What do you think of the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal? 

Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)

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